Chapter 304: Scenario Leaderboard

Meanwhile, back in the room, Uhtred adopted a casual air with Xun, casually steering the conversation toward the world outside.

Naive and forthright, Xun happily answered every question without realizing he was laying out critical intelligence.

Their talk dragged on for a while. Most of Xun’s ramblings were things Uhtred couldn’t give a flying fuck about, but amidst the useless talk were vital clues about the layout of the scenario world.

By the end of it, Uhtred had formed a solid picture of where he was — and his first takeaway was that this Floor’s trial was far more direct than the last.

According to Xun, this gateway outpost — along with every other outpost in the human kingdoms — was situated deep inside the Brutal Wilderness, a vast swath of untamed forest dominated by powerful beasts.

Crossing through the Brutal Wilderness to the nearest town or city would take days. And even then, it was nearly an impossible task because of all the beasts dominating the forest.

Xun had gone as far as to say that, more times than not, even Nascent Realm powerhouses usually ended up dead before reaching the other side. Mortal Realm cultivators had no chance at all. Not once had any Mortal Realm cultivator made it more than a few hours into the Brutal Wilderness before they perished.

How exactly this gateway outpost — and every other gateway outpost — were built so deep in the Brutal Wilderness remained a mystery.

What wasn’t a mystery, though, was how Mortal Realm cultivators like Xun and Kun were able to reach here.

There was a teleportation circle connecting the outpost to a base in the human kingdoms. But it was only activated whenever a new set of watchers was being sent here — which wasn’t for several months more.

The moment Uhtred had heard about the teleportation circle, his first question was why Kun hadn’t mentioned it at all. But then after Xun revealed the reason, and also the location of the exit point, he lost all interest in using it.

Besides, Xun also mentioned something else.

Apparently, the reason why the gateways were situated so deep into the Brutal Wilderness was so champions could tackle the wilderness as they tried to head to civilization.

Not just in human kingdoms, but also in the kingdoms of all other races of Valeria, every champion needed to face this wilderness on their own. It wrapped around the entire landmass of Valeria and served as the first test for all champions.

Uhtred sat in the room alone as he ruminated over all he’d learned from Xun. He’d given the guy two extra Essence Crystals for his troubles and asked to be left alone to gather his thoughts for the meantime.

"I have to leave tonight," he muttered to himself, already planning his next course of action. Unlike on Floor 2, he didn’t need a map here. All he needed to do was cross the Brutal Wilderness and begin to compete against the other champions.

With a thought, he called up a special ranking panel he’d only just learned about. A ranking panel made up of all champions competing within this scenario world:

[Scenario Leaderboard]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 1

Name: Ignis The Mighty

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 98,390

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 2

Name: Drakus The Terrible

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 74,150

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 3

Name: Ryukis Dragonblood

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 65,800

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 4

Name: Bizzaro

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 58,900

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 5

Name: Azreal

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 53,200

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 6

Name: Pyroth

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 48,600

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 7

Name: Broadus

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 44,900

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 8

Name: Goroth

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 41,800

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 9

Name: Duskscale

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 39,200

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 10

Name: Eileen Ra’Elis

Race: Elf

Scenario Points: 37,500

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 11

Name: Drakehorn

Race: Half Dragonkin Half Elf

Scenario Points: 36,900

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 12

Name: Draven

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 35,800

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 13

Name: Theron

Race: Half Dragonkin Half Elf

Scenario Points: 34,700

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 14

Name: Ignis

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 33,900

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 15

Name: Lyra Starweaver

Race: Elf

Scenario Points: 33,100

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 16

Name: Balthazar

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 32,400

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 17

Name: Aerith Moonwhisper

Race: Elf

Scenario Points: 31,800

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 18

Name: Faelar Leafsong

Race: Elf

Scenario Points: 31,200

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 19

Name: Voron

Race: Dragonkin

Scenario Points: 30,600

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Rank No: 20

Name: Elion Silverwood

Race: Elf

Scenario Points: 30,030

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Looking at the rankings left Uhtred with a bitter taste in his mouth. The entire top twenty was dominated by the Dragonkin race, with only a few half-bloods and elves mixed within. Not a single human could be seen — not even in the top thirty, or top forty.

The first human name only appeared at number 51 — Perfection.

King Alexei sat right behind him at number 52. Black Sun Mateo sat at number 58. And Antoine Blanc sat at number 60, nearly dead last on the entire list. The number of ascenders on the leaderboard totaled 67.

Uhtred guessed that was the number of ascenders who decided to stay and not take a break. His own name wasn’t on the list yet, and neither were Zara’s, Diya’s, or anyone else’s who’d taken a break.

We’ll likely only join the list once we earn our first points, Uhtred thought. But still...

He looked at the leaderboard once again, specifically staring at the name at the top:

Ignis The Mighty.

"Is it even possible to catch up to this guy?" Uhtred muttered.

He couldn’t know for sure. He didn’t even know how hard it was to get one point... which was why he was so eager to get a move on now, rather than in the morning.

The sun had already begun to set, and by all logical reasoning, it was better to try crossing the Brutal Wilderness during the day rather than at night when beasts were most active...

But seeing how far ahead the number 1 was — not just compared to human champions, but every single champion in general — a spark of competition was lit inside Uhtred.

After a final check and preparation, Uhtred didn’t hesitate. He stepped toward the window, slipped into the shadows, and vanished into the night.